


wait

by algebraicmutiny



Series: the gays, calamari edition [1]
Category: Love Live! Sunshine!!
Genre: Angst, F/F, OOC, dias something idk, jsyk there isn't a happy ending, kanan's bitter, mari's an asshole, unless i decide to continue it but thats not likely
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-01
Updated: 2017-07-01
Packaged: 2018-11-21 20:50:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11365395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/algebraicmutiny/pseuds/algebraicmutiny
Summary: "Kanan can almost see her crumbling to dust in front of her very eyes, blowing away with the wind that is rippling through the waves and her hair, gold on the breeze."





	wait

**Author's Note:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Kanan thinks love may be a little like this.

Mari is dangling her legs over the dock, blowing smoke out to the ocean and laughing at nothing in particular. It feels natural, almost, but Kanan knows that something is wrong, it has to be, because even as Mari laughs, her hands are shaking, lighting cigarette after cigarette.

Kanan can almost see her crumbling to dust in front of her very eyes, blowing away with the wind that is rippling through the waves and her hair, gold on the breeze. She can barely breathe, and decides to take another mouthful of beer, swishing it around her mouth and through her teeth like it's mouthwash.

"You can't tell Dia about this," Mari laughs breathily. "Our secret, yeah?" She winks, and Kanan's heart stutters in her chest.

"Yeah," she responds eloquently, brain short circuiting at the look in Mari's eye and the way her legs tip towards the water. "Yeah, okay."

"Hey!" A voice yells from the road, and both girls turn around in surprise. "I see beer! I want in!"

Kanan snorts when she sees You waving frantically at them, slipping her shoes off and tossing them onto the pavement, dashing down the stairs and spraying sand as she sprints towards them. "Go away, You, you're like a baby!"

You just cackles as she flops onto the dock with them. "Shut up, I'm nearly seventeen. Anyone here smoke weed?"

Mari laughs. "Oh, You-chan." She sighs and stands up, brushing off her skirt and picking up her shoes. "I should get going, I'll see you guys at school on Monday!" With that, she trots away, waving at them with a smile that doesn't reach her eyes.

Kanan watches her go, inexplicably feeling her heart throb in her chest. You frowns.

"What's up with her?" she asks, before picking up a box and making an indescribable noise of excitement. "She left her cigarettes! Awesome."

Before she can do anything, Kanan snatches the box out of her hands. "You're sixteen, You, don't pull that shit on me." Turning the box over in her hands, she adds, "besides, these are expensive. I'll give them to her tomorrow."

You stares at her thoughtfully. "You didn't say that when I stole Dia's cigarettes," she ponders. Kanan rolls her eyes.

"I'm gonna go now," she announces, standing up and grabbing the remaining beer and any empty cans. "You can sit here by yourself. Don't you have better things to do? Like sleep?"

"I could ask you the same thing," You retorts, eyeing the cans Kanan is holding. "Are you seriously gonna drink all that?"

"And drown my misery? Totally," she says. "You're not getting anything. Buy your own."

With that, she turns and leaves, hair whipping around her in the wind. When she reaches the road she turns back to check on You. She's staring at the moon, completely motionless, save for the wind in her hair. Kanan sighs and keeps walking.

She ends up not going to drop the cigarettes off at Mari's house the next day, instead opting to smoke her brains out outside the shop. She feels slightly guilty, but also like Mari owes her at least this after airing her for two years; she can barely feel her face when she finishes the pack, which is kind of nice, but she knows that she'll pay for it on Monday when she hacks up her lungs in a bathroom stall. She'll probably end up going home early, and Dia will bring her cover work and fuss over her, berate her when she finds the cigarette pack (damn hypocrite), and then look at her sadly when she sees its Mari's favourite brand. She'll leave after that, Kanan knows, because Dia knows, funnily enough. She's pretty sure she always has, probably even before Kanan did herself, but that's okay.

Dia has always had a habit of inserting herself in places other people thought she had no place to be.

_(Such places tended to be other people's beds, Kanan knows, but it isn't her place to interfere, is it?)_

She tries to recall the last time she saw Mari before she left-- a soft kiss, a breathless 'I love you' and soft hands cupping her face before she disappeared forever-- but its foggy, now replaced by bright smiles and fake promises of 'soon'. Kanan can't bring herself to care, really, not anymore.

She flicks the last cigarette butt into the ash tray and decides not to think too much about it anymore.

Kanan doesn't see Mari in class on Monday. Trying to focus is hard, so she just stares out of the window and doodles nonsense into her notebook. Her teacher asks her if she's started thinking about university. She doesn't really have an answer, so she shrugs. "I have the shop," she offers by way of explanation. It sounds weak, even in her own ears.

She trudges home after lunch, just as it starts raining, bag slung over one shoulder. She can feel Dia's eyes on her as she marches out of the building, but she doesn't care (she does).

Dia does stop off after school, but she doesn't fuss or nag like Kanan expects her to. She just purses her lips and slumps onto the steps next to her, dropping a few worksheets onto the cement. Kanan offers her a beer, and she takes it, popping the lid off with her teeth; Kanan had been surprised the first few times she did it, but Dia had noticed her shocked expression and explained that her boyfriend had taught her how.

_(She dumped him a few weeks after that. She hadn't seemed to care, and Kanan marvelled at her blasé attitude, wondering if she could ever be like that.)_

After a few moments of silence, Dia speaks up. "She knows."

Kanan jolts. "Knows what?" she asks, leaning back onto her hands, staring.

"That you love her," Dia states numbly. "That everyone does."

Kanan doesn't reply, instead glaring at the ground. Dia sighs.

"Be careful," she warns. "You know what she's like."

Kanan shakes her head. "Yeah," she says, quietly. "Yeah, I do."

Dia leaves after that, but not before sweeping the house for any remaining cigarettes. She doesn't find any, but she looks at Kanan disapprovingly when she finds the ash tray, but Kanan just cocks an eyebrow in response. What's the point, really, in trying to hide anything.

_(She takes two bottles of beer out from under Kanan's nose, and Kanan curses her out of house and home when she finds out. She doesn't care that much, but now she only has five and she'll have to buy more, especially if Chika shows up and empties her fridge again in a lovesick rampage._

_"You should tell her," Kanan had advised, looking at the younger girl from over her bottle._

_Chika just snorts. "What, the way you haven't?" She brushes her hair away from her face, eyes slightly glazed. "No. You go first."_

_Kanan wraps her hands around the neck of her beer. "Okay," she says. "Okay.")_

Kanan doesn't quite understand Mari, but no one does, so it's alright, it's fine (it's really not). She isn't in school on Tuesday and doesn't show up to practice either, but Kanan supposes she can't say anything seeing as she's been skipping a lot in the past week, mainly to get drunk and cry where no one can see her.

She feels kind of numb as she goes through the motions, and Chika claps in front of her face. "Smile, Kanan!"

Kanan bares her teeth in a kind of grimace. That night she falls asleep in front of the television, curled up around a pillow, some bad talkshow playing in the background. She dreams that Mari's gone again, but this time no one can remember who she is.

_("Who's Mari?" Chika asks, eyes wide and bright. Kanan runs away. Soon, she finds herself in Mari's house, which is also a train, and wrecks the place in her rage._

_"Why did you leave?" she sobs, and Mari appears in front of her, smiling._

_"Crying's not a good look on you," she states, and Kanan punches her, before waking up in tears.)_

"Crying's not a good look on you, Kanan," Mari says when she finds Kanan slouched over the railing, facing the beach, after school. "Shouldn't you be at practice?"

Kanan fights the urge to punch her. "Where have you been?" she asks, and Mari smiles.

"Doing important things," she answers, and Kanan feels herself bristling. "Not that you'd understand. Everything around here is so very trivial."

"Mari," Kanan says lowly, straightening up before facing her. "I will smack you in a moment if you don't explain yourself."

The other girl snorts and flips her hair. "No, you won't."

"No, I won't," says Kanan, before punching her square in the nose.

_(In hindsight, it was a bad idea, but it had felt good at the time.)_

"That was a bad idea," says Dia, later, when they're sitting on the steps outside the shop. "But I think everyone has been thinking about doing it for a while now."

Kanan nods. "Yeah."

She sees Mari a few days later. Her nose is all bandaged up, and she waves at Kanan brightly. Kanan turns away.

She thinks she needs time. Mari can learn to wait, just the way she had.

**Author's Note:**

> pls be kind i wrote this in notes on my ipad and im cryin also sorry its p ooc but u know w/e


End file.
